Chapter 4 – Cocoa and Cookies
"Oh, you can't sleep either, huh?" Kitty Pryde asked as she looked to see Remy stumbling tiredly into the kitchen. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of cocoa and a plate of cookies. She looked exhausted, her eyes dark beneath, her hair mussed.
"I got woken up, Rogue said I was talkin' in my sleep or something," Remy answered, "how come you're up?"
"Baby kickin' something fierce. It's gonna end up kicking it's way right out of me."
"How long now?"
"Three days," she drew a breath.
"Scared?" he asked as he slipped into the chair beside her at the table, he leaned back and tried to make himself comfortable, his wound throbbed dully despite the painkillers he was on. The pain never seemed to completely go away.
"Terrified. I mean...god, I'm gonna be a mom..."
Remy smirked at this, he'd known Kitty since she was around fifteen and she had always seemed fifteen, even so many years later, all grown up. She seemed barely a child herself and now she would have one of her own.
"Thank you, by the way," Kitty said after taking a drink from her cocoa.
"For?"
"For taking Jessie out."
"You already thanked me," Remy reminded.
"Yes, but...I just...need you to know how important it was...for her. She's...really alone here, Remy...and she needs someone."
"She has you," Remy pointed out.
"I know she has me," Kitty said, "But I'm not enough. She needs more...someone she can really connect with..."
"I don't think she'll really connect to me, petit," Remy picked up a cookie from the plate and he broke it in half. "Honestly, maybe that's the best thing. I'd be bad for her to really be around, you know I ain't a good example for kids."
"Why not?" Kitty asked, "you're smart, you're funny, you're brave, you're a great role-model..."
"I steal, I lie, I cause people nothing but heartache. How can you say I could be a role-model?" he ate one half of the cookie in one bite.
"You used to steal and lie, there's a difference," Kitty reminded. "Besides...Jessie likes you, I can tell. She doesn't like any of the other guys here. Except maybe the professor and Hank."
"So what makes me so damn special then?" Remy demanded.
Kitty shrugged, looking away, "I don't know, maybe...maybe she sees something of herself in you..."
Remy frowned, "how'd you mean?" he ate the other half of the cookie and then wiped his hands of crumbs.
"Maybe there's no way to explain it," Kitty said, she sucked in a sharp breath of pain, "Oh man..." she breathed.
"You okay?"
"Kicking," she grimaced, she took his hand, "feel," she commanded, she placed his hand on her belly so he could feel the hard kicks from beneath the mound.
"Ow," Remy remarked.
"It's starting to hurt," Kitty sighed, "wish the kid would go to sleep already so I can go get some too..." she winced, "Geez, Kid stop kicking me or I'm gonna yank you out of there myself," she pouted.
"That's an image I don't wanna think about..." Remy made a face, taking his hand away from her. "Kurt's been hanging around you an awful lot lately since he got back I noticed..." he said to change the subject.
"Yeah," Kitty picked a cookie up from the plate. "We're good friends."
"He still loves you," Remy admitted.
"How do you know?"
"When someone finds the love of their life, it's very hard to stop loving them," Remy shrugged, "like me and Rogue. We might not be right for each other, but can't help how we feel."
"Oh."
"Kurt isn't the love of your life though," Remy said, recognising that look on her face.
She shook her head, almost regretfully.
"Pete is."
Kitty wished Piotr's name hadn't been brought into the conversation. She'd been trying long and hard to forget about him and now here she was to be reminded about him again. "Yeah, well, he's gone."
"Do you still love Kurt?"
"Sometimes," Kitty admitted, "night he came back I thought I did for a little moment," she paused, "but maybe I mistook it for something else."
"Like what?"
"Lust?"
"Ah," Remy nodded, "Yeah...love and lust are so closely related they often get mistaken for each other."
"Been so long since I felt anything because of being pregnant," she sighed, "no dates, no kisses, no sex...it's kind of a drag."
He smirked, "sounds like my love life."
"How is your relationship with Rogue, anyway?" Kitty queried now that the subject had been brought up.
"It's stable, for the time being. Takin' it slow. Sometimes I wish I could change that but she wanted things slow and I'll respect it, even if she's the one doin' the pushing."
"Is she? Doing some pushing, I mean."
"Maybe."
"Like...pushing for, uhm...stuff?"
He raised an eyebrow, "are you asking me what I think you're asking me?"
"Yeah," she nodded.
"She's interested is all I'm sayin'."
Kitty paused, she looked into her cocoa, "How far can it go, anyway?"
"How far can...me and Rogue go?" Remy asked.
She nodded.
"I don't know," he confessed, "we never seem to stay together long enough to find out. I'd love to be able to...to try and get close, to maybe work on her powers with her, maybe we can find some way to be together..."
"Have you tried just saying that?" something in the way she said it made it sound a lot simpler than it really was.
"When we were younger, not that she really took much notice. She was so full of doom and gloom and thought the only way to fix it was to get MutantX so we could...be together that way."
"MutantX is temporary...have you guys ever tried to...use it?" she asked.
"No," Remy frowned, "and I wouldn't want her to."
"That's good," Kitty nodded.
"Besides...the last time..." Remy trailed off, "the last time she did take it...well...I don't want to really think about it," he ran his hand through his hair.
Kitty understood, and she left the topic at that, she took one last drink from her cocoa which was now cold. "I think I'm gonna go to bed now," she said, "kicking has stopped now," she stood up.
"I'll clear up this stuff," Remy offered.
"Thanks," Kitty smiled serenely, she squeezed his shoulder as she passed by him, then left him.
He made himself busy by clearing away the cookies and the half cup of cocoa she'd left behind her, and while he did he thought of Jessie's words once gain, her fears about being forgotten or abandoned once the baby was born. Of course, it wouldn't be intentional on Kitty's part – she was about to get very busy with a newborn to constantly look after, it couldn't totally be Kitty's fault. But he was beginning to wonder himself if it would happen.
